Facebook Now Has Smart Lists - Does Anyone Care?

Receive the latest press-here updates in your inbox

Facebook may have been the first social network to scale up, but it's become wonderful at implementing features that everyone else already has.

After their "awesome" announcement a few months ago, that turned out to be nothing more than adding Skype video (a feature MySpace did in 2007), it's been really hard to care when they announce something new.

Not only do they add features that are in no way innovative, they like to put them in places that are not very intuitive. Referring back to that video feature, how long did it take users to find that tiny little video button buried in the chat window? Sure, it wasn't days or hours, but it also wasn't exactly prominent on the page. Wouldn't it make sense to put a big fat "HEY WE HAVE VIDEO NOW! INSTALL HERE!" button somewhere on the site so people can find it?

Facebook is also notorious for randomly making small redesigns to their page. Is this to keep users on their toes or what? What's the point of relocating, removing, or burying features?

So when Google finally launched a viable social platform (+), they added a feature users really liked: Circles.

Now we have something called "Smart Friend Lists." If you care to know what that is, the Facebook Blog tells us,

"Want to see posts from your closest friends? Or perhaps you'd like to share a personal story with your family—without also telling all your co-workers. With improved Friend Lists, you can easily see updates from and share with different lists of friends."

Sound familiar? That's because Google+ is already doing that with Circles.